Rosio Pavoris

Alright, yeah.
For the record, there are some beliefs I don’t have a problem with. Here are a few of them:

Strong atheism. Obviously. This isn’t a religious belief, it’s just common sense and rationalism.

Weak atheism. The religious equivalent of “dunno, lol”. I don’t have a problem with this, because it doesn’t motivate anything either way.

Agnosticism. Not the one where you go “maybe there is, maybe there isn’t”. That’s weak atheism. The one where you say that a god-type figure is inherently unknowable. I like this, because it essentially says belief in a god is bullshit, and/or the question is irrelevant.

Some forms of pantheism. Namely, the ones that define God as the sum total of life. Because at that point, you might as well be non-religious.

I think that’s pretty much it.

I’ll assume my beliefs are common knowledge by now (strong atheism lol), so instead of reiterating the specifics of why I think religion is a cancer, here are some things people have viewed as relevant rebuttals in the past, and my reply to them:

Believing in something bigger than yourself isn’t a crime!
No, it’s paranoid schizophrenia.
In itself, that wouldn’t be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that imaginary friends tend to make unreasonable suggestions. Suggestions like “the world was created in seven days” and “I should sacrifice my son on that mountaintop thar”.
Believing in something bigger than yourself when there is no evidence suggesting that it exists is, at best, irrational, and more often just harmful.

I don’t particularly care about the beliefs, I just like the ceremony of it all.
Well, fine. Join a book club or something.
I can understand this, really. AFAIK, everyone in family married in a church, even though almost none of them are at all religious. That’s understandable, because churches tend to be pretty and imposing, and they’re conveniently large enough to offer seats to the entire family.
At some level, though, encouraging insane beliefs just to satisfy your sense of theatrics is just stupid.

You should be tolerant of other people’s beliefs!
Fuck that. If my beliefs were as ridiculous as most of the religious ones are, I’d expect to be publicly mocked, and honestly, if my friends didn’t point them out just to spare my sensibilities, they aren’t people I’d want to be friends with in the first place.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t go into churches or whatever and yell at people for being idiots. I don’t even stand on streetcorners handing out pamphlets or asking people if they’d like to come to their senses now (and yes, we even have those people here, in areligious Europe). But I will not avoid any and all mention of my beliefs in private conversation just because you think it’s intolerant.

But people need religion for moral guidance! Without God, what’s stopping you from stealing, killing, raping, &c.?
If the only thing that’s stopping you from stealing, killing, raping, &c. is your belief that a cosmic policeman is looking over your shoulder, you have much, much bigger problems than people making fun of your beliefs.
Seriously, who is more moral: the person who doesn’t do any of those things because Big Brother is watching, or the person who doesn’t because he realises other people are people too?

Can’t we just coexist? I won’t try to convert you, and you won’t try to convert me.
Sure, we could, if people would stop letting their religious beliefs influence important parts of my life. To wit, the abortion thing, the creationism thing, most types of terrorism, stories like this, &c.
And if you consider atheism to be a religious belief in the same way christianity or whatever is, you haven’t been paying attention at all. Lurk moar.

So yeah.
I’m perfectly happy to let people believe whatever they want to, but their beliefs are breeding grounds for extremism, and extremism likes to interfere with my day-to-day life.